


seeing things clearly (my everything)

by LittleMissLiesmith



Series: On The Existence of Angels in Night Vale [2]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angels and Demons, Drink to Forget, Implied Sexual Content, Irresponsible Posting While Night Drunk, M/M, Reincarnation, Very loosely implied, implied alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissLiesmith/pseuds/LittleMissLiesmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos has never had reason to be afraid of the voices in his head, even when they turn out to be not so imaginary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	seeing things clearly (my everything)

**Author's Note:**

> Yay for irresponsible night-drunk story postings!
> 
> A retelling of the angels have heaven from Carlos/Crowley's perspective.

When Carlos was very small, tucked away in bed under a solar system mobile, able to look behind himself and out a window into space, he heard voices in his head.

There were quite a few, but the one Carlos liked best was deep and sort of fussy--the kind of voice that ran a back-alley bookstore or antiques ship. That voice murmured "my dear" in his ear late at night; sometimes if Carlos was very still and quiet, he felt a hand run over his curls.

Growing up, Carlos was never afraid of ghosts or monsters because angels watched him as he slept.

-O-

Carlos is twenty-two and studying for his doctorate when he is assigned to Night Vale, the most scientifically interesting community in the United States (reportedly a village in Madagascar is equally scientifically interesting, but Night Vale is only a few states away). At some point during the blur that is his first day he meets Cecil Palmer.

Cecil Palmer is average in many ways and extraordinary in even more; Carlos can't describe him except to say that when he sees Carlos for the first time he _smiles_ , smiles like Carlos is his everything, smiles like a sun, smiles like he loves him.

He's wearing a sweater vest and carrying a purple and black notebook. It's a tartan sweater vest, absolutely hideous, but it _suits_ Cecil in some undefinable way.

For a moment Carlos thinks Cecil should be wearing glasses.

He doesn't say so. Instead he says "Nice to meet you, Mr. Palmer."

"Nice to meet you too, my dear," Cecil says.

Carlos just about had a heart attack and feels his mouth curling up into a smile anyway.

Cecil Palmer is _his_ voice. The deep one. Slightly fussy.

This should be unnerving, or creepy, or forget it, _damn terrifying_. But this is also Night Vale and Carlos has stood outside a house that doesn't exist for twenty-seven minutes daring the others to go knock on the door and Carlos has measured a 5.1 earthquake that no one felt and Carlos has never, ever had reason to be afraid of his voices.

-O-

Cecil calls him perfect, and it takes every bone in Carlos's body not to correct him with _only angels are perfect._

Angels don't exist, and Cecil isn't an angel, and Carlos is not in love with Cecil Palmer.

(Even if he kind of is, even if he kind of has been since he was very small.)

-O-

One year later Carlos almost dies.

Dying isn't peaceful, at least not for him. It's blind terror and shaking and trembling and _no no nopleaseno_ and fire and ice and hurt and loss and a thousand indescribable things that Carlos never, ever wants to think about, much less dream during a near-death experience.

This is probably why, when he is living once more and the panic has receded, Carlos calls Cecil and says "I just wanted to see you".

Life's too short to ignore this any longer.

-O-

His voice is back, but not in his head. His voice is on the radio and beside him on the couch and, after several months of dating, it is in bed with him when Carlos has another nightmare, a nightmare of panic and pain and death, a nightmare too vivid to be anything but a memory.

"Shh," Cecil-his-Voice soothes, one arm wrapped around Carlos's waist to pull him close and the other behind his head to stroke his had. "Shh, my dear. You're safe."

Carlos curls against Cecil, clings to the radio host's soft grey T-shirt, an doesn't tell Cecil he's wrong.

Carlos isn't safe.

He never has been.

-O-

Carlos is trapped in an alternate desert dimension.

By day this is exciting. He travels with the masked army and does science on everything he passes, working on his invention to re-open the doors. By evening, after talking to Cecil, it is lonely but bearable. He eats supper with the army and retires to the tent furthest away.

This is because night is hell.

He met his double during the invasion, a man who looked just like him in a nice suit with hair slicked back and sunglasses. At night he sees the double, Diego, but it isn't really him.

It's Carlos. He just looks like Diego.

At night he dreams of dying, of pain, of a world on fire and of a threat fulfilled.

The night before his invention will be ready to return him to Night Vale, Carlos is in his tent, is falling asleep, when he is plunged back into his dreams and he remembers.

He remembers everything.

-O-

In Night Vale, if you are something (say, a demon of hell on run from the other demons), say nothing and drink to forget.

-O-

It is Anthony J. Crowley who returns to Night Vale and when Crowley looks at Cecil he only sees Aziraphale.

"Angel," he says, desperately, because Aziraphale is his everything. "Angel, we need to talk."

-O-

He tells Cecil everything he remembers, sometimes more as Carlos, sometimes more as Crowley, but he gets it all out.

His eyes are yellow. Not possessed-by-the-Smiling-God-and-glowing yellow, just yellow, kind of sickly and slit vertical.

This is because Carlos Mendez is a demon named Crowley.

"Aziraphale," he says when Cecil doesn't respond for a while. "Az, it's me, it's Crowley--"

Cecil stops him and reaches to the next booth over, pulled sunglasses off Hiram McDonalds's grey head, and slides them onto Carlos.

In his reflection on the table he sees Diego and he sees Crowley and he isn't sure which he prefers.

"That feels nice. Thank you, angel," he says, smirking even as he'd rather be sobbing.

Cecil seems to understand and orders them a round of drinks.

They drink until the memories wash away, until Cecil Palmer and Carlos Mendez are sitting at a table at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner surrounded by bottles and drunk as anything and they can't remember why.

-O-

Carlos sees Cecil look in mirrors where mirrors shouldn't be and says nothing.

Carlos calls Cecil "angel" out of habit, apologizes, and says nothing.

And, beginning weekly but slowly working their way up to daily, he and Cecil _are something_ and remember it, so they say nothing and drink to forget.

He sees Diego in his reflection. A sad figure, hair pulled back and eyes yellow, drinking away the pain.

He doesn't see Crowley, vivacious and wild and wonderful.

He prefers it this way.

-O-

Angels don't exist in Night Vale.

This is nice because for a long time, Heaven doesn't think to make sure of this fact.

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of Diego mostly come from the fact that I was reading slash stalking videntefernandez and themoreyoustrex on tumblr and ended up realizing that if Carlos is Crowley reincarnated, Diego looks even more like the demon with the dark glasses and slicked hair and suits. 
> 
> Apologies for any irresponsibility that comes from me posting this while night-drunk. I think it's alright, but then, I always do.


End file.
